Amazon Sued Over Zappos Hack Attack

Amazon faces a lawsuit from a customer stemming from the recent Zappos.com hacker attack.

Well, that didn't take long. According to a report from Bloomberg, a customer has decided to file a class-action lawsuit against Amazon over the Zappos hacking attack that took place over the weekend.

Bloomberg names Theresa Stevens, from Beaumont, Texas, as the person behind the lawsuit. As for the specifics of the legal complaint, filed on Jan. 16 in federal court in Louisville, Kentucky, Stevens claims that because of the Zappos security breach, she and other users "are more likely to receive e-mails from spoof websites and unknowingly give away personal information to hackers." The class-action lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for all of Zappos' 24 million customers.

The actual court document (below), posted by PaidContent, offers interesting details into the strategy of what will likely become an increasingly common legal skirmish for online retail companies.

The crux of the complaint appears to rest on the fact that users will have to change their passwords across the Web and that the hack will put them at greater risk for identity theft and phishing scams.

And while some may regard this swift lawsuit, filed just days after the incident, as an example of an overly litigious society, the legal action does point out some very serious concerns and responsibilities related to maintaining an e-commerce platform and securing the personal details of millions of customers. As of this writing, Zappos and Amazon have not publicly responded to the lawsuit. If you're a Zappos customer and somehow missed the security update, you can access the company's password reset page, with associated details and information, on Zappos.com.